nly based were,
however, made in 1890-93, when I spent nearly three years in the
country, engaged in the preparation of "Baedeker's Handbook to the
United States." My work led me into almost every State and Territory
in the Union, and brought me into direct contact with representatives
of practically every class. The book was almost wholly written in what
leisure I could find for it in 1895 and 1896. The foot-notes, added on
my third visit to the country (1898), while I was seeing the chapters
through the press, have at least this significance, that they show how
rapidly things change in the Land of Contrasts.

No part of the book has been previously published, except some ten
pages or so, which appeared in the _Arena_ for July, 1892. Most of the
matter in this article has been incorporated in Chapter II. of the
present volume.

So far as the book has any general intention, my aim has been, while
not ignoring the defects of American civilisation, to dwell rather on
those features in which, as it seems to me, John Bull may learn from
Brother Jonathan. I certainly have not had so much trouble in finding
these features as seems to have been the case with many other British
critics of America. My sojourn in the United States has been full of
benefit and stimulus to myself; and I should like to believe that my
American readers will see that this book is substantially a tribute of
admiration and gratitude.

J.F.M.

I

Introductory

It is not everyone's business, nor would it be everyone's pleasure, to
visit the United States of America. More, perhaps, than in any other
country that I know of will what the traveller finds there depend on
what he brings with him. Preconception will easily fatten into a
perfect mammoth of realisation; but the open mind will add
immeasurably to its garner of interests and experiences. It may be
"but a colourless crowd of barren life to the dilettante--a poisonous
field of clover to the cynic" (Martin Morris); but he to whom man is
more than art will easily find his account in a visit to the American
Republic. The man whose bent of mind is distinctly conservative, to
whom innovation always suggests a presumption of deterioration, will
probably be much more irritated than interested by a peregrination of
the Union. The Englishman who is wedded to his own ideas, and whose
conception of comfort and pleasure is bounded by the way they do
things at home, may be goaded almost to madness